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Friday, November 27, 2020

A growing number of Americans are going hungry (Washington Post) It was 5 a.m., not a hint of sun in the Houston sky, as Randy Young and his mom pulled into the line for a free Thanksgiving meal. They were three hours early. Hundreds of cars and trucks already idled in front of them outside NRG Stadium. This was where Young worked before the pandemic. He was a stadium cook. Now, after losing his job and struggling to get by, he and his 80-year-old mother hoped to get enough food for a holiday meal. More Americans are going hungry now than at any point during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, according to a Post analysis of new federal data—a problem created by an economic downturn that has tightened its grip on millions of Americans and compounded by government relief programs that expired or will terminate at the end of the year. Experts say it is likely that there’s more hunger in the United States today than at any point since 1998, when the Census Bureau began collecting comparable data about households’ ability to get enough food. One in 8 Americans reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week, hitting nearly 26 million American adults, an increase several times greater than the most comparable pre-pandemic figure, according to Census Bureau survey data collected in late October and early November. That number climbed to more than 1 in 6 adults in households with children. “It’s been driven by the virus and the unpredictable government response,” said Jeremy K. Everett, executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty in Waco, Tex.

Tweet on spare change generates big money for virus aid (AP) Andy Larsen is a sports writer, but with so many games scratched during the pandemic he has spent a lot of time digging into coronavirus data and its sobering implications. Then on Monday, while he was sorting his spare change—some from a childhood piggy bank shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants—it struck him: Other people in Utah could use the money more than he could. His composed a tweet to his nearly 27,000 followers, hoping to quickly find someone who could use the $165.84. Within a minute, someone offered to essentially double his donation with a deposit into his Venmo account. Then someone else pitched in, and another. It kept snowballing as Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox retweeted it, calling the effort “very cool.” “I figured I would help a couple families with Thanksgiving, or a family with three kids buy Christmas presents,” said the 29-year-old Larsen, who covers the NBA’s Utah Jazz for the Salt Lake Tribune. By Wednesday, he had collected more than $52,000. With the pandemic keeping people from getting together in a big way for the holiday, the online effort became a chance to conjure a sense of community, a feeling of being part of something larger. “It felt like it took on a life of its own,” he said.

How College Students Are Helping Each Other Survive (NYT) At many colleges and universities, from underfunded institutions to top-tier private colleges, many students have found themselves unable to meet basic needs during the coronavirus pandemic. Financial insecurity, previously accelerated by rising tuition costs and living expenses, has become even more acute because of the closure of campuses, loss of jobs and slashing of budgets. In response, across the country, students have created mutual aid networks: raising and redistributing tens of thousands of dollars to help their peers cover housing, medical costs, food and other essentials. Generally, students send in requests for small amounts of money, and network organizers will send them the funds using payment apps like Venmo. At its core, mutual aid is a form of charity in which neighbors or peers work together to help each other out on a case-by-case basis. The aid networks are entirely student-run, operating outside of any official college administration oversight. At Georgetown University, students donate cash to a central Venmo account, according to one of the founders, Megan Huynh, 20. “Then we have a funding request form for students in need—both undergrads and graduate students—to request basically like a micro-grant of $50 to $100,” she said. “And we just send them the money, no questions asked.”

Pandemic gave locals fleeting taste of a tourist-free Hawaii (AP) Line-Noue Memea Kruse lives on Oahu’s famed North Shore, where marveling at sea turtles, epic waves and sunsets that paint the sky orange and purple are a must for many tourists in Hawaii. After the islands required a two-week quarantine for travelers amid the coronavirus pandemic, Kruse rejoiced in the little things as the number of tourists dramatically dropped. It took her 35 minutes to drive to Walmart, instead of spending hours stuck in traffic as tourists gawked at turtles on the beach. Before the pandemic, as many as 30,000 visitors arrived a day. That dropped to several thousand after the quarantine mandate. “What the pandemic did was give us all a moment to pause, a number of months, to rethink everything,” said state Sen. J. Kalani English. “What it proves for us is that old model of tourism, which is, you know, mass bring 11 million visitors a year, didn’t work and people were tired of it.”

Macron’s Rightward Tilt, Seen in New Laws, Sows Wider Alarm in France (NYT) A rightward push by the French government is alarming civil liberties advocates in France and raising questions about President Emmanuel Macron’s positioning ahead of an expected electoral challenge from the far right in 2022. Propelled by a national wave of anxiety following recent terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists, two proposed new laws underscore what critics have called an alarming drift toward repression in government policy. One bill, which passed an initial hurdle in the lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly, on Tuesday, restricts the public filming of the police, a step civic groups consider a shield for brutality at a moment when law enforcement has come under more scrutiny for aggressive tactics, often from citizens armed with cellphone cameras. The other, still to be considered by Parliament, seeks further restrictions against Islamism as the French government has defined it, reaching into some aspects of Muslim life. This bill would ban home-schooling, flag in a database those deemed to “excuse” terrorist acts, subject organizations that receive government subsidies to a test of allegiance to “the values of the republic,” and increase strictures against polygamy, which is already illegal. In tilting right, Mr. Macron, a shape-shifting centrist who came out of the Socialist Party, has placed himself largely in step with public opinion.

German restrictions to last until March? (Reuters) Germany will probably have to stick with measures to dampen the pandemic into January, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, while her chief of staff suggested that restrictions might be needed until March. “Given the high number of infections, we assume that the restrictions which are in place before Christmas will continue to be valid until the start of January, certainly for most parts of Germany,” Merkel told parliament.

It was never easy being an interfaith couple in India. Now some states are making it harder. (Washington Post) Marrying across religious lines has always been a challenge in India, a vast multifaith democracy where the pull of family and tradition remains strong. Now politicians in India’s ruling party are contemplating laws to thwart such unions, driven by a conspiracy theory that views them as a tool for conversions. At a rally last month, the leader of the country’s largest state warned of the danger of “love jihad,” an inflammatory slur referring to an alleged plot by Muslim men to convert Hindu women through marriage. Men who “conceal their names and play with the honor of daughters and sisters” should prepare for their final journeys, thundered Yogi Adityanath, the radical Hindu monk who leads the state of Uttar Pradesh. The “love jihad” smear is baseless, but it has become common parlance among members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In recent weeks, four state governments have promised to enact new laws to combat the purported threat. The new laws will deepen concerns that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s Muslim minority is increasingly subject to suspicion, discrimination and even violence.

Coronavirus: Shanghai rises to become world’s most connected city (BBC) Shanghai has dethroned London to become the world’s most connected city as the coronavirus shakes up international travel. London has seen a 67% fall in connectivity in air travel, according to airline industry body IATA. Shanghai has risen up the ranks, and the world’s four most connected cities are now all in China. IATA says the pandemic has “undone a century of progress” for connectivity between cities. “The dramatic shift demonstrates the scale at which the world’s connectivity has been re-ordered over the last months,” said Sebastian Mikosz, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Large transport hubs including London, New York and Tokyo have been hit hard by the dramatic reduction in flights in and out of their cities.

Ethiopian PM says troops ordered to move on Tigray capital (AP) Ethiopia’s prime minister said Thursday the army has been ordered to move on the embattled Tigray regional capital after his 72-hour ultimatum ended for Tigray leaders to surrender, and he warned its half-million residents to stay indoors and disarm. The military offensive “has reached its final stage” after three weeks of fighting, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office said. That means tanks and other weaponry can close in on Mekele, whose residents had been warned of “no mercy” if they didn’t move away from Tigray leaders in time. Abiy’s statement asserted that thousands of Tigray militia and special forces surrendered during the 72-hour period that ended Wednesday evening. “We will take utmost care to protect civilians,” the statement said.

It’s Time for a Digital Detox (NYT) Even though the presidential election is over, we’re still doomscrolling through gloomy news about the coronavirus surge. The rest of your daily routine is probably something like mine while stuck at home in the pandemic: Divided among streaming movies on Netflix, watching home improvement videos on YouTube and playing video games. All of these activities involve staring at a screen. There has to be more to life than this. With the holiday season upon us, now is a good time to take a breather and consider a digital detox. No, that doesn’t mean quitting the internet cold turkey. Think of it as going on a diet and replacing bad habits with healthier ones to give our weary eyes some much needed downtime from tech. “There’s lots of great things to do online, but moderation is often the best rule for life, and it’s no different when it comes to screens,” said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and the author of “iGen,” a book about younger generations growing up in the smartphone era.

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